I was looking forward to try 4649 since there was not that many yakitori place in Seattle and the ones around were not that great.

Usually when I am truly craving for yakitori, I will take the trip to Vancouver BC’s Zakkushi.

Our party decided to have small plates to maximize trying different items on the menu.

We got okonomiyaki, another of my favorite Japanese food that had no representation in Seattle; an avocado tempura that my friend was keen to experience; a Hokkaido style fried chicken and a pan seared wild salmon with butter miso sauce.

We ordered an array of skewers to try: mochi with bacon, japanese shishitou peppers, chicken skin, beef round with diakon and ponzu, pork belly with plum sauce, chicken thigh with 4649 spice and a tsukune (a kind of chicken meat ball formed long on a skewer) with yuzu citrus butter.

The okonomiyaki was decent, but not close to the real ones in Japan nor from Izumiya at Japan town in San Francisco.

The Hokkaido style fried chicken was not what I expected.

The flavor of the chicken was great, but the texture was not crisp and yet not soggy; it was an in between texture that I did not care for.

I found the avocado tempura very interesting.

My friend who was keen to try it actually ended up not enjoying it as much as I did.

A whole avocado with skin was fried to perfection.

The warm avocado flesh was buttery and flavorful; most surprising was the skin.

Contrary to my encounter with raw avocado skin that was so tough, it was edible and soft after frying.

The miso salmon was delicious and the cabbage at the bottom of the plate that soaked up all the sauces were the best.

Of all the skewer, the tsukune was the best with tender and crunchy texture; our option of yuzu citrus butter was light and wonderful.

The flavors of all three of the meat skewers, chicken thigh, beef and pork, were not through and through as if the meats were grilled separately and sauces/flavoring were put on top; the meats were fairly bland.

The mochi was disappointing as it had no flavor and was completely bland.

It looked like the mochi came straight out of the box from Japanese grocery store as it was still in its rectangular shapes.

The chicken skin skewer was also a disappointment as the skins were not crisp at all.

I was introduced to this lovely sparkling peach flavored sake at the restaurant.

It was one of those deadly drinks that one could have large amount of and got drunk without realizing.

When we were there, lots of folks were having ramen, perhaps it was the dish to try there?

Unfortunately, I will still need to make the trip to Vancouver BC for yakitori in the near future.

I had sous-vide food at restaurants before but never got to see how they were made.

Steaks being sous-vide in water bath

Sous-vide referred to the process of cooking food inside vacuum sealed bags in a hot water bath.

I was observing the making of some thick cut steaks, about 3 inches tall.

The temperature of the water bath was tightly regulated with the gadget (the black one with the temperature display), while the steaks submerged and bobbed in the water.

That particular day, the steaks were placed in the water bath for 3 hours at 129F.

The advantages of cooking sous-vide was to retain the juice and aromatics of the food, which would otherwise be lost due to heat, evaporation or leakage into the water/broth that the food was cooked in.

There was also textural advantage in preparing food this way.

In general, food items were being cooked at a lower than normal temperature; coupled with the even cooking made possible by water bath, food were cooked thoroughly to its doneness at a much lower temperature.

This allowed the meat to be cooked tender without getting tough, and vegetables to be cooked and stayed crisp.

There were so much science involved to deliver the perfect sous-vide for flavor and texture, and to deliver food that was safe enough for consumption.

The danger of low heat cooking was that bacteria and viruses that could cause food borne illness did not get destroyed properly.

Consequently, sous-vide cooking was similar to pasteurization where combination of temperature and duration of heat exposure were taken into account to ensure the food was safe to eat.

fresh out of the sous-vide pouch

Once the steaks were removed from the pouches, it was time to grill.

With low temperature cooking, it was impossible to get browning that we were accustomed to from grilling, searing on a pan or even the crisp and dry outer layer from roasting or baking.

As a result, in meat application, grilling at high heat was desirable to obtain the brown flavors.

We were grilling the meat at the highest heat possible.

The surface of the steaks were dried off, grill marks were made and the process sealed in the flavors and juice of the steaks further.

The resulting meat looked gorgeous.

It was exceptionally flavorful and juicy.

However, the texture was not as tender as we expected.

We theorized that it might be the steaks since they were not very fatty to start with.

All the ice cream at Mora were made in small batches with clean ingredients.

I loved the store’s simple design, clean and sleek.

Each flavor of the ice cream was hidden in a stainless steel bucket with stainless steel lids.

I really wanted to have the goat cheese fig ice cream that day, but it was sold out.

I tried the Marron Glace – chestnut cream.

It was creamy and tasty with excellent roasted chestnut flavor; however, DH did not like it.

We settled with Maraschino cherry flavor.

I knew the cherry flavor wasn’t the freshest kind, and the color was the most unnatural, but I grew up with those little cherries on top of ice cream sundae or in canned fruit cocktail, the maraschino cherry flavor was every bit nostalgic for me.

The sweet cream flavor came through fantastically and it was very creamy.

The little snack before dinner was delicious and against all Chinese parents’ teaching, “no sweet food before dinner, you will spoil your appetite!”

I am glad that the ice cream did not do too much damage, and I was able to enjoy my 6-course tasting menu at Hitchcock (the meal was fantastic and deserved its own page…stay tune!)

On our way back, we joined the city in celebrating the Seahawks’ advancement into the NFC Championship Game, and now SuperBowl!!

The very first piece was the Akodai, served with seaweed, with the surprising flavors of yuzu (Japanese grapefruit).

The fish was light in flavor, snapper-like, and with chewy tendon.

Flavor combination was wonderful and bursting in my mouth.

Other highlights were:

Peppery flavored Tachiro, firm texture, seared just right and it tasted sassy with the added peppery flavor;

Kawahagi, a firm texture fish, which was served with its liver on top that was super creamy and smooth; the green chives gave brightness to the sushi;

Sutsuki, a flavorful, tendony fish with sliver of shiso – mild flavor and a nice chew.

Many pieces were served “no-frill”, just the seafood’s raw taste from the sea: the delicious Toro – fatty, melted in the mouth; Buri – a Hamachi-like fish which was only available during winter time, was fatty and a clean flavor.

Quite a few pieces were seared to highlight the flavor of the crispy skin or imparted seared fat flavor.

My favorite piece in this category was the Gindara, in the same family as black cod — this piece of sushi was superb with soft meat, fatty and sweet, and the flavor lingered in the mouth for a very long time after the piece was well in my stomach.

The stall in the picture was not fully opened yet, otherwise, all the empty spaces in the pictures would be full of snacks.

I used to go to these stalls with my grandma, especially before Chinese New Year.

We bought all the sweets and savory snacks to fill up this compartmentalized box to offer to guests when they came to our house for Chinese New Year greetings.

The stall carried treats from western candies and chocolates, to Chinese dried picked fruits such as sour plums, to snacks such as dried squid, wasabi peas etc.

Candies and snacks were sold by the pound and one could get as little or as much as they wanted.

With Hong Kong occupying such a small geographical area and its super convenient transportation, it was customary for people to go to the market and buy food for the day every day to guarantee freshness of their food.

It also helped that a lot of people had maids, so the shopping and cooking were done by the maids anyway.

Alas, both super fresh food and maids were luxury for life in North America.